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I make my last hive preparation for winter in the first weeks of November. I used 1 inch of 'pink' insulation under the outer cover; no problems with 'chewing'; cluster is down in the lower box. By the end of March, I remove all... 'insulation'.

OK, I was going to propose this question later in the year but I want to submit it now.

The inner covers have that oblong opening in the center, right? For overwintering, do you think there would be any advantage to closing off that opening and drilling holes in the four corners. The warmth of the cluster is in the center and having that opening there creates a 'draft' of warm air; don't you think??

>MB, if there is a reason that we should not feed syrup (besides those who overfeed and end up with syrup in their supers) please let us know.

My point is that it's less work to leave them stores, and it's better for them. If they need to be fed you should feed them. I'm too lazy to extract honey and then turn around and feed it back. I try to leave enough honey on my strong hives that I can steal it for the light ones.

>Edit: Just wanted to add this. It seems to me that the hives that went into winter without full stores survived in greater numbers. I can't explain why this happened.

Maybe they had more room to cluster. They really can't cluster on capped honey, they need some empty cells in the center.

My point is that it's less work to leave them stores, and it's better for them. If they need to be fed you should feed them. I'm too lazy to extract honey and then turn around and feed it back. I try to leave enough honey on my strong hives that I can steal it for the light ones.

Maybe they had more room to cluster. They really can't cluster on capped honey, they need some empty cells in the center.

Ok, I can agree with that feeding policy. Tend to get a couple of deeps of honey each year, I spread this around to the weaker hives in the late fall. If I don't have honey to give from another hive, then I feed. This year I plan to overwinter with a empty shallow that has about 5lbs of sugar on newspaper, and I plan to do this on every hive. If any of those hives have sugar left over that is worth anything in the spring, I'll mix it with water and give them a slow feed from mid March through the end of April, but only enough to stimulate brood rearing. I have a few old quart jars that I plan to only put three holes in the lid so they have to take it slow, then I'll wait a few days after each feed so they use up any that they may have stored.

We are probably quiet abit colder than you so some of the things we do will differ however:
we wrap with an insulated wrap. An R-8 value We also add an insulated roof.
we feed 5-7 gallons of sugar water and treat in the fall. Several frames of pollen as well.
We try to have them wrapped by halloween
We can not afford to build a shelter belt for the bees so what we did is row 5x6 bales around the bee yard. Two yards we are thinking on leaving out because they are pretty sheltered from the winds The rest are coming home and the bales will go around the yard of hives
See if you can find a farmer willing to sell some old hay bales real cheap that you could use for a few years. Just need to pile them each year. Husband piles the bales about 5-6 feet away from the hives.

We also put ceiling tile i the inner cover to collect moisture throughout the winter.
We are happy to see bees flying in the winter on warm days We call it the "poo poo flight" or cleansing flight. And the snow has a salt and pepper look to it from the bees that did not make it back. Helps to keep the hive healthy.
We do not feed honey back until mid spring. Here the honey gets to thick and heavy. The bees are then unable to make the cleansing flight or get back from the cleansing flight. What happens then is they poop in the wrapp and hive all in and get sick.
I wish i could figure out howto show a pic of the winter yard. oh well